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Great article! Great genus! Thanks so much for writing this.
I am quite familiar with Dasylirion acrotrichum, which, along with the "blue" D. wheeleri, is grown in immense numbers by wholesale nurseries in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona for use in civic, commercial and home landscapes throughout the American southwest. Green-leafed D. acrotrichum is almost as popular as D. wheeleri , and the two are often used together to create naturalistic or geometric contrasts in the landscape, since they are more or less the same size and shape but differ so dramatically in color.
While there are no cultivars or even named seed strains of either species, nurseries have, over the years, selected for the powdery silver blue color in D. wheeleri, roguing out individuals that are noticeably green (and often tossing them into the D. acrotrichum beds!). At this point, clones of D. wheeleri with leaf colors other than clear silvery blue are pretty much non-existent in the wholesale landscape trade. D. acrotrichum, on the other hand, has not undergone any equivalent "shaping" and retains in cultivation the slightly variable yellow-green color found throughout its natural range.
In my experience in the horticulural trade of the desert regions of the US, Dasylirion wheeleri is far and away the species grown and used the most, followed by D. acrotrichum. Both are quite hardy and can be used in areas as cold as Sunset zones 10 and 7, or (winter dry) USDA zone 7b. My experience is that D. acrotrichum is slightly more tender to frost than D. wheeleri, especially if grown in soil with insufficient drainage that can get cold and soggy in winter; summer moisture seems either useful or neutral at worst.
Dasylirion longissimum is the next most common species, although until the past decade or so it and D. texanum were only really grown by Texas wholesalers. Following quite distantly are the rest of the species, none of which are grown by big commercial wholesalers, to my knowledge. Instead they are the business of specialty growers, who grow them in limited quantities for special projects, or nurture them for years until they emerge as expensive trunked specimens.
One odd thing is the name. For my entire life as a horticulturist I and my colleagues have known the plant as Dasylirion acrotriche (Schiede) Zucc. And yet I now find that the accepted name is (as you state) Dasylirion acrotrichum (Schiede) Zucc. What's confusing, though, is that both forms have exactly the same authorities attached to them; the plant was originally named by Christian J. W. Schiede as Yucca acrotricha, and when it was transferred to Dasylirion it should have naturally become "acrotrichum" following Latin rules, but it appears that instead Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini (Zucc.) chose to use the form "acrotriche" because of the anomalous Greek "ion" ending of Dasylirion (instead of Latin "Dasylirium" which it should have been if everybody was playing by the rules"). What I can't find, though, is who brought it back to "acrotrichum", and by what set of rules within International Nomencalture. Any ideas?
